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Per capita access to hospitals, mental health services, and further education facilities in German towns and cities – primarily in the former GDR – now outstrip equivalent areas in England, often several times over, according to a new report.
The post Services across England now lag far behind East Germany, as experts call for 'universal basic infrastructure' in UK appeared first on Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

I've posted a few times over the years about a trip I made with my partner to Leipzig in East Germany back in 1984, and I confess that the now-defunct country retains a kind of fascination for me. My rather banal judgement then and now is that the country, though marked by annoying shortages and […]

In this article, Monika Rogers investigates if the historical ideas and beliefs about privacy and personal data protection are still shaping the experiences, law, perceptions and behaviours in the digital world of Lithuania, Russia and (East) Germany, three countries united by similar historical experiences of living in non-democratic sociesties with state-socialist legal systems.

To rescue Vinh from its ruins, East Germany provided substantial material and technological assistance that was designed to transform it into Vietnam's model socialist city. However, this transformation was not without its challenges, as Vinh's rapid ascendance was followed by a quick fall into 'unplanned obsolescence', writes Xue Xuan, reviewing Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East … Continued

The new EU fiscal rules being finalised would still leave central- and eastern-European states such as Latvia in a bind.

My quest for a sabbatical hangout has succeeded (have I mentioned rejection is inherent in this enterprise?).  The Humboldt Foundation is going to fund six months of my hanging out at the Hertie School in Berlin--three months in 2024 and three months in 2025.  The Hertie School is an international affairs graduate program and very strong in international security.  What will I be doing there?  First, I will be pursuing the next big project: understanding the varying roles defense agencies play in democracies.  I have already been to South Korea, quite recently.  The next step will now be Germany. Obviously, being in Berlin will facilitate the German case as I will have much time to interview folks in their Minister of Defense, in their armed forces, journalists, and experts.Second, the project involves case studies in other European countries.  So, I will be able to travel to some other parts of Europe to do some of the work for this project.  Which ones?  Not sure yet.Third, I will get engaged in the life of Hertie, so that I can learn what the students and profs in Europe are thinking about a variety of international security issues.  Marina Henke, one of the very sharpest scholars on alliance politics and international security, is my host, so I hope to learn much from her about how folks are thinking about NATO, Ukraine-Russia, and other topics.  Fourth, I hope to have some chances to visit various research centers and talk about my work and, again, get different perspectives.  I will be a cheap date for two winters--that it won't be hard to bring me to any place from the UK to Eastern Europe, compared to the costs of flying me across the Atlantic.  That's, um, a hint.  Fifth, deep into my career, I need a breath of fresh air, a change of pace, a bit of a shake up.  Sabbaticals are good for that, but sabbaticals away from home are better at it. Oh, and maybe there will be some time for tourism and skiing.  So, there will be the complications of getting a visa and finding an apartment, but overall, it is time for this senior scholar to do a happy dance:

The long-anticipated move by leftist MP Sahra Wagenknecht to form a new left-populist party opens the prospect of a more active debate within Germany on the policy course taken by the now highly unpopular coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).The potential appeal of this new party will depend largely on whether voters agree that the policy of supporting Ukraine is responsible for Germany's economic downturn.Party ConfigurationThe German political scene has evolved in recent decades away from the alternation in power of the center right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the center left Social Democrats (SPD), often with the FDP in coalition with one or the other of these, to present a spectrum of parties including the center left Green party, the far-left Die Linke (the Left) party and the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD).With the lone exception of AfD, these parties all broadly support Ukraine's war effort, until Ukraine itself is ready to seek a negotiated settlement. CDU/CSU support now stands at 29.4%. The AfD comes second with 21.2%. Support for the three governing parties together has fallen to 35.6%. The AfD's spectacular rise in polls seems to many analysts to suggest a generalized dissatisfaction with the status quo, and not necessarily the sudden conversion of many Germans to far-right extremist views. Wagenknecht has called this a "representation gap," one that her party would seek to exploit. The long-anticipated announcement on October 23 of the launch of a new party led by Die Linke MP Sahra Wagenknecht makes the course of German politics much less predictable. Even more than the AfD, the new party foregrounds its opposition to the prevailing stance on the war in Ukraine. Antiwar politics and the "representation gap"A majority of Die Linke's Bundestag delegation has backed tough sanctions against Russia, while still opposing weapons exports to Ukraine. Tensions within the parliamentary delegation grew as Wagenknecht, in public and in the Bundestag, assailed the sanctions policy and called for the opening of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The party has hovered since the last election just below the 5% threshold of support needed to win representation in the Bundestag. The breaking away of Wagenknecht and her nine colleagues from the Die Linke faction reduces that party to a parliamentary group, rather than a faction, affecting its funding and other prerogatives in the Bundestag.Wagenknecht and the nine other Die Linke MPs who have joined her effort to form the new party have provisionally named it the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance. They plan to have the party officially formed and ready to contest the European Parliament elections of June 2024 and three state elections in Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg (all in the former East Germany) later next year. This timing seems well chosen: European Parliament elections are typically favorable to smaller parties, and many voters in the eastern states are, for various reasons, favorable to the Wagenknecht initiative. A snap poll reported on October 31 found that 14% of voters could imagine themselves voting for the new party. This would immediately place it in fourth place, behind the CDU/CSU, AfD, and the SPD, and ahead of the Green party. The new party's impact would be felt mostly on the AfD, but would attract support from all parties other than the Greens and Die Linke itself. Wagenknecht's stated aim is to fill a "representation gap," which means her party will seek to represent those German voters who do not support further arming of Ukraine and who favor efforts to settle the conflict through diplomacy. Evidence of the existence of this gap is the spectacular rise of AfD which began just after Russia's invasion in February of 2022 (when AfD support stood at 9.5%) and more recent polls placing AfD support above 20% since mid 2023. As of March of this year, about 30% of Germans found the arming of Ukraine to have been excessive, and a small majority — 52% — said diplomatic efforts to end the conflict had not been adequate. More recently, a majority (52%) opposed providing Taurus missiles to Ukraine.Wagenknecht's anti-war popularityWagenknecht has been an MP since 2009 and was co-leader of Die Linke in the Bundestag from 2015 to 2019. Born in East Germany, she became active after 1989 in the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism, initially heading its leftmost, avowedly communist wing. The PDS merged with disaffected leftists of the west German SPD in 2007 and became Die Linke, which for some time enjoyed some electoral success, including in western Germany. Former SPD leader and finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, was co-founder of Die Linke and is Wagenknecht's husband.Because of her frequent appearances on political talk shows, Wagenknecht is fairly well known to the German public. Often the lone dissenter against the prevailing posture on Ukraine, her arguments are always persuasive, articulate and above all dispassionate. She is a controversial figure, but one that remains among the most popular German politicians. A recent poll showed her finishing third behind Defense Minister Pistorius and CSU leader Markus Söder in national approval ratings.Ukraine War positions: AfD and WagenknechtAlthough AfD's published program states that there can be no viable security order in Europe that excludes Russia, this issue is not often emphasized in their appeal to voters. By contrast, Sahra Wagenknecht's notoriety is entirely wedded to her very public antiwar stance. In February 2023, Wagenknecht joined Alice Schwarzer, a leading anti-war activist and editor of the feminist journal EMMA, to put forward a Manifest für Frieden (Manifesto for Peace) and inviting signatures online.The antiwar demonstration in Berlin on February 25, led by Wagenknecht and Schwarzer, attracted participation by about 10,000 people, but did not produce the momentum that the organizers might have hoped for.Wagenknecht has called herself a "conservative leftist," faulting Die Linke with having built its support base among younger, urban progressive voters while allegedly neglecting voters of the working class. This dispute has taken the form of a contest between an identity vs a class basis of leftist politics. Wagenknecht argues for the refocus of the left on defense of the interests of the German working class. She has sounded some caution about what she sees as excessive openness to flows of migrants.What does it mean?The launch of organizational efforts to form Wagenknecht's new party opens the prospect of a more active debate within Germany on the policy course taken by the weak governing coalition. Wagenknecht has stated that she and her party will not cooperate with AfD. The AfD made a very strong showing in recent state elections in the prosperous western states of Hesse and Bavaria, suggesting that its own potential is not confined to eastern Germany. By filling a tempting "gap" in German politics, the Wagenknecht alliance could endeavor to to curb the rise of AfD.

In 1939, Poland was invaded on both sides: by Germany from the west and by the Soviet Union from the East. Germany controlled Poland during much of World War II, but with Germany’s defeat, the Soviet Union stepped in and established control of both its politics and economy. Although Soviet control was shaken at various … Continue reading Poland since 1938: Into a Planned Economy and Back Again
The post Poland since 1938: Into a Planned Economy and Back Again first appeared on Conversable Economist.

With no ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in sight and Houthi forces in Yemen still firing missiles and drones at commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the EU's efforts at addressing conflict in Gaza and its broader regional ramifications keep flailing.After weeks of discussions, the EU officially launched its naval operation in the Red Sea on February 19 to protect international commercial shipping from Houthi attacks. The Houthis claim they wantto force a ceasefire in Gaza. Yet, while the ceasefire remains elusive, the attacks impose real costs on EU members: the EU commissioner for economy Paolo Gentiloni recently estimated that the rerouting of shipping from the Red Sea has increased delivery times for shipments between Asia and the EU by 10 to 15 days and the consequent costs by around 400%. Around 40% of the EU's total trade with the Middle East and Asia passes through the Red Sea.Protecting that shipping route thus is an important collective economic and security interest for the EU. Yet only four countries — France, Germany, Italy and Belgium — out of the 27 member states have agreed to provide warships for the new operation. Spain, which refrained from using its veto power to block the initiative, nonetheless declined to participate, having expressed concerns from the outset that any armed operation would reduce pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza. A bigger question is how effective this new EU operation will be in countering the Houthi threat given its purely defensive mandate to provide "situational awareness, accompany vessels and protect them against possible attacks at sea." Accordingly, the participating EU warships will be authorized to fire on Houthi targets only if they themselves or commercial vessels they are to protect are attacked. That rules out pre-emptive action against Houthi missile batteries or related targets.The defensive nature of the operation, however, may not be enough to convince the Houthis to refrain from attacking the European ships. In fact, Houthi leaders warned Italy, one of the new operation's chief promoters, that it will become "a target if it participates in attacks on the Houthis." If this threat comes to fruition, will the EU authorize offensive action against the Houthis, potentially drawing itself into a wider conflict? Will it rely on U.S. hard power for protection given that Washington is already engaged against the Houthis through "Operation Prosperity Guardian," in which a few EU nations – Denmark, Netherlands and Greece, as well as non-EU NATO members Britain and Norway -- are also participating? Would such developments not lead to a de facto merging of the U.S. and EU-led operations under Washington's lead — an outcome Europeans sought to avoid and which is the very reason why they launched their own mission in the first place? That these are not abstract questions is underscored by the failure, so far, of scores of U.S.- and UK-led strikes to degrade the Houthis' capabilities to the point where they would no longer pose a significant threat. Indeed, just as the EU announced its mission, the Houthis hit a British cargo ship which was at risk of sinking in the Gulf of Aden in what the Yemeni rebels claimed was their biggest attack yet. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations confirmed the incident, though it did not name the ship.Ironically, the safest way for the EU to avoid a direct military engagement with the Houthis, apart from testing their vow to stop attacking shipping if Israel ends its Gaza offensive, would be to reduce the number of targets in the Red Sea by encouraging ships to reroute. But such an outcome would, of course, vindicate the Houthi strategy to impose costs on the Western powers for the failure to stop the war in Gaza.And that brings us back to the mother of all conflicts in the Middle East: the continuing war in Gaza. The EU's approach so far has been to delink Gaza from the crisis in the Red Sea and the broader escalation in the region, including clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Yet mounting tensions on that front show that its approach is not working. Some actors in the EU understand the urgent need for a ceasefire in Gaza as a necessary condition for regional de-escalation. The EU high representative on foreign policy Josep Borrell has been particularly vocal in his criticism of Israel. He suggested limiting arms sales to Tel Aviv on the grounds that such transfers violate EU guidelines that ban sales to countries accused of violations of the international humanitarian law. A Dutch appeals court recently ordered a halt to exports of F-35 jet parts to Israel on the same grounds. However, it is highly unlikely that the EU as a whole would adopt such a position, given that a number of countries – especially Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary – strongly support Israel.A stronger point of leverage could be to suspend fully or partially the association agreement between the EU and Israel. The EU is Israel's largest trading partner. In 2023, that agreement enabled 46.8 billion euros worth of bilateral trade. The prime ministers of Spain and Ireland, Pedro Sanchez and Leo Varadkar, respectively, asked the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to "urgently review" whether Israel is violating the human rights clauses included in that agreement. On February 19, the Spanish foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, insisted that the review should be completed in time for the next EU foreign ministers meeting on March 18.A full suspension of the agreement seems very unlikely even if the Commission finds Israel to have violated its human rights obligations because that would call for a unanimous decision by all member states. A partial suspension would require a qualified majority: 55% of member states (or 15 out of 27) representing 65% of the EU's total population. Notably, the only precedent for taking such an action came in 2011 when the EU suspended an association agreement with Syria in response to mass violations of human rights by the Bashar al-Assad regime. Meanwhile, the EU proved unable last week to issue even an official appeal to Israel not to follow through with its plans to carry out a ground invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the last refuge of nearly a million refugees from elsewhere in the enclave. In the face of a veto threat by Hungary, the other 26 member states instead issued a joint statement warning of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences should Israel move ahead with such an invasion. Notably, however, Hungary was isolated in its opposition to the appeal as Germany and other member states that have traditionally been reluctant to criticize Israel's conduct of war were on board. That is a step forward, but it's too little and it comes too late. As long as the EU keeps avoiding imposing real consequences on Israel for its conduct, it will keep losing influence in the Middle East.

by Kathleen Beger and Ulf Brunnbauer Weak economies and a lack of professional prospects have had a significant impact on migration movement from Central and (South)East European countries to Germany over the past two decades. The EU Eastern Enlargement in 2004, 2007 and 2013, together with the freedom of movement in the EU, as well as visa liberalisation for non-EU countries, and programmes implemented by Germany to facilitate the immigration of skilled workers from third countries have accelerated this process. Thus, between 2015 and […]

A few years ago, Germany hardly had any significant populist radical right or extreme right parties in its parliaments. Now, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has strong local and regional roots and is represented in 14 of 16 state parliaments and in the Bundestag. The AfD: an imminent threat to democracy in Germany? Recent polls for the upcoming 2024 state elections in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony show the AfD as the strongest force in all three states, with support of up to 32% and 35%. Contrary to the oft-repeated perception that the AfD is an East German phenomenon, recent elections in Hesse and Bavaria in October of this year, where the party secured 18.4% and 14.6% respectively, coupled with national ...

As the United States plunges ever deeper into a fresh Middle East conflagration — this time fighting Iran-backed non-state actors, including Yemen's Houthis and Shiite resistance groups in Syria and Iraq — its closest allies from the EU and NATO stand divided.
These divisions reflect a long-standing failure of the EU member states and institutions to speak with "one voice" on the Middle East.
When the U.S. called for an international coalition to stop the Yemen-based Houthi militias attacks on the international shipping in the Red Sea, only a few European nations signed the joint statement: the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Italy. Of that initial group, only Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, plus Greece joined as the European contingent of "Operation Prosperity Guardian."
Others like France, while condemning the Houthi attacks, expressed preference for an autonomous, European-led operation. Still others, like Spain, were skeptical of any involvement in any anti-Houthi action whatsoever.
So far, Britain has been the only navy to engage in actual strikes against the Houthis (so far, with limited success), as part of the U.S.-led operation. Meanwhile, EU defense ministers agreed to launch the EU-led "Operation Aspides" to help guarantee free navigation and the safety of commercial traffic — initially, under Italian command.
Securing maritime freedom is considered vital, as approximately 40% of EU trade with Asian and Middle Eastern countries passes through the Red Sea. But the precise mandate and rules of engagement for this mission remain unclear. The EU foreign ministers are supposed to decide on those questions at their meeting on February 19. The EU high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell, however, seems to have ruled out anything beyond defensive actions to protect ships and intercept the Houthi attacks, including taking part in U.S.-UK-led strikes against the Houthis or conducting their own offensive strikes.
Once the EU operation is set in motion, however, that distinction might become blurred. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, a top Houthi leader, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, declared that Italy will "become a target" if it participates in attacks on the group. That prompted a swift response from Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who insisted that Rome "will not be intimidated by the Houthi threats." Yet he was also careful to emphasize the planned mission's defensive nature. And it is notable that neither Italy nor the EU as a whole have followed Washington's lead in designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization.Reactions to the U.S. strikes against Iran's allies in Syria and Iraq — in response to the deaths of three U.S. troops caused by a drone attack on Jan. 29 — present a similarly fragmented picture. Borrell assessed those strikes as a "domino effect" resulting from the Israel-Hamas war. He called on "everybody should try to avoid that the situation becomes explosive." Britain, predictably, supported Washington's "right to respond to attacks" while condemning "Iran's destabilizing activity throughout the region."
Meanwhile, Poland's hawkish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski emphasized that "Iran's proxies have played with fire for months and years, and it's now burning them." The European Parliament, meanwhile, in its resolution on the situation in Gaza adopted in mid-January, pointed to Iran's "aggressive actions and use of proxies as a means of deliberately destabilizing the region" as the principal cause of the escalation.
The rhetoric aside, there is no sign so far that the EU is gearing up to join the U.S. conflict with the Iran-backed "forces in Syria and Iraq, either militarily or through diplomatic support. There are good reasons behind such restraint: the open-ended nature of the U.S. commitment increases the risks of a direct U.S.–Iran clash. That, in turn, could incentivize Iran to move aggressively to obtain a nuclear weapon as an ultimate deterrent as it's already a de-facto nuclear threshold state.
Such a step would ruin for good any prospects for a nuclear agreement with Iran, a policy still promoted by the EU. In fact, as recently as mid-January, Enrique Mora, the political director of the European External Action Service, discussed the nuclear file with the Iranian chief negotiator Bagheri-Kani at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Also, increased instability in Iraq and Syria and a decimation of the Shiite militias there could also create conditions for a revival of ISIS, their sworn enemies, who have committed atrocities on European soil as well as across the Middle East and beyond. EU officials have been warning about the growing risks of terrorism in Europe as a spillover from the war in Gaza for some time now.
And that brings us back to the root cause of the European divisions on the Houthis, Syria, Iraq and Iran: diverging perspectives on Israel's campaign in Gaza. While all EU member states strongly condemned Hamas' pogrom, their reactions belie different priorities. Some countries, such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany, are closely aligned with Israel and therefore, privilege Israel's right to self-defense. However, others like Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Slovenia, and, to some extent, France, see the war in Gaza and the Israel-Palestine conflict more generally as a principal cause of the expanding mayhem in the Middle East. They find it increasingly problematic to compartmentalize the Gaza carnage, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the growing tensions between the U.S. and Iran-backed Shiite groups in Syria and Iraq.
They think that taking a more forceful action against the "resistance front" would reduce the pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.
It is unlikely that the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) imposing a number of measures on Israel on its conduct of war in Gaza will bridge the intra-European differences, despite the EU's professed commitment to international law. The EU emphasized that the ICJ rulings are binding and have to be implemented "fully, immediately and effectively."
Predictably, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Slovenia issued statements to the same effect. Germany, despite its generally pro-Israeli position, joined them. France supported the ruling but failed to call for its implementation. The real actions, post-ICJ ruling, however, reflect the remaining deep divisions: a number of countries announced that they will suspend the funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the principal humanitarian actor in Palestine, following the accusations against some of its workers for links with Hamas. Those include Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Romania and the Baltic states.
Others, like France and Germany, said they'll wait for the results of the investigations on those alleged Hamas links, and still others, like Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Slovenia, pledged to continue the funding. Borrell, the EU's top diplomat, stressed that defunding UNRWA "would amount to collective punishment" of Palestinian civilians. To underscore the divisions further, the EU still failed to agree on sanctions against the violent Israeli settlers, due to the opposition from Hungary and Czech Republic, even though the U.S. has already announced that it will take that step.
It is, therefore, fair to expect that the EU and its member states will continue to muddle through, agreeing only on the lowest common denominator, further hobbling their capacity to act as relevant actors in the Middle East.

In 1874, the British magazine "Punch" published a cartoon showing a conversation between a young girl and her mother:"Mamma, shall you allow me to go to the Wilkinsons' ball?""No, darling," the mother responded"You've been to a great many balls, mama?""Yes darling – and I have seen the folly of them all," she said."Mightn't I just be allowed the folly of one, mamma?"This comic, which may have reminded readers of the one-sided settlement of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, would have a lasting resonance. Over the course of the 20th century, European and American leaders imposed harsh terms on their vanquished enemies in the grand peace conferences that formally ended World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.In each case, the winner excelled in sowing the seeds for the next conflict. Those who seek a peaceful Europe should keep these lessons in mind when the time finally comes to end the war in Ukraine.In 1871, Prussia chose the Chateau de Versailles — the masterpiece and symbol of French might — as the ideal place to proclaim the German Empire. The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were incorporated into the new German polity despite the majority of the population feeling French.WWI ended with a German defeat in November 1918, after which the victors dictated peace terms to Germany and left it no option but to sign. Alsace and Lorraine reverted to France. Germany found itself too weak to protest the terms but too proud to bear their consequences.The opportunity for revenge came in 1939. Adolf Hitler's hubris led him to attack Poland. Ultimately Germany lost WWII to a grand coalition of Britain, France, the U.S., and the Soviet Union.The winners chose to carve out almost all of the province of Prussia and give it to Poland. The rest morphed into the Federal Republic of Germany, which chose the Western camp, and the German Democratic Republic, which joined the Soviet system. Germany today bears no resemblance to the Germany of 1871 to1945 and is still struggling to find an identity.Fast forward to 1991, when the victors of the Cold War rather unceremoniously stamped their mark on a new global power balance.The Warsaw Pact, established in 1955 as a counterweight to NATO, was immediately dissolved. NATO, for its part, gradually expanded to include ten countries that were formerly either a part of the Soviet Union or a member of the Warsaw Pact.Russia, as the successor state to the Soviet Union, was left without the "buffer zone" of Eastern European states that had been vital for the Czars and the communist leader Josef Stalin. Russian rulers had long deemed this area imperative due to their lack of natural geographical defenses like north-south rivers or mountains.For centuries many Central and Eastern European countries were compulsorily included in the Czarist and Communist Empire. Not surprisingly, they do not trust Russia and are not willing to grant it influence on their choice of security. Russia and Central and Eastern European countries are each impinging on what the other party considers to be its vital interests.Russia was too weak to block the role assigned to it by the victors but too strong to be kept down for long — a picture sorely reminiscent of Germany in 1919. Now, Moscow hopes to rescind what it perceives as the wrongs of history by reintegrating Ukraine in its sphere of interest or even as a part of the Russian Federation. Ukraine's vigorous defense illustrates Kyiv's defiance in the face of this unilateral attempt to resuscitate Russian power and global role. Ukraine has ferociously defended its independence after several hundreds of years in a Russian empire. Russia and Ukraine, then, are each impinging on what the other party considers to be its vital interests.Russia has the largest resources, including manpower, but mobilizing them comes at a cost. Western observers have estimated that Russian troops have suffered about 300,000 casualties. And even if the economy is doing relatively well despite sanctions, this pressure comes at a cost.Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that peace would come when Russia's war aims had been achieved, reiterating that he sought Ukraine's denazification, demilitarization, and neutrality. He didn't lift the veil much, which gives him room to maneuver without hinting at how he might contemplate using it. President Putin speaks exclusively to the Russians – and the Russian voters — so Western observers should be reluctant to interpret it.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been fairly intransigent when it comes to peace talks, which is necessary to rally the troops. He addresses both the domestic and foreign audience, which also complicates any rash interpretation. There are – unsubstantiated – inklings that inside his close circle opinions may differ. Allegedly, some argue time is not on Ukraine's side. The summer 2023 offensive did not play out as hoped. Ukraine is dependent on Western aid, and no one knows for sure how solid the commitment is.The European Union laid down a marker December 14 by formally deciding to open accession negotiations with Ukraine. It now seeks ways to continue financial aid by overcoming Hungarian opposition.It is conventional thinking that a President Trump, if elected in 2024, will close shop vis-à-vis Ukraine. He has indeed declined to commit to continued military assistance, saying only that he would get a deal done in a day and warning both sides of consequences if that doesn't come to pass.The rest of the world should remind both sides that they need to be cognizant of history and not try to use demands to crush or humiliate the other side so as to sow the seeds of the next conflict. A sore point is obviously territory, where outside parties should be wary about voicing strong views. It must be done in a way that closes the chapter once and for all. Otherwise, the risk is that Donetsk and Luhansk could go the way of Alsace and Lorraine.The Russian attack on Ukraine may be perceived as an isolated and regional conflict, but it isn't. The Western world should realize that the background for the war is, to a large extent, about Russian feelings of insecurity and dissatisfaction with the world order. This feeling is widespread outside the Western camp and helps explain China's stance.Only a genuine attempt to produce a global power balance that takes into account how the world looks today can bring about lasting peace and stability — not only in Ukraine but in other hot spots around the world.

One may wonder what has prompted the US government to become so heavily involved in the war in Ukraine after the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan.     According to a geopolitical explanation that I have echoed in other posts, the conflict arose from the expansion of NATO to ex-communist countries, contrary to initial promises, with the aim of blocking any attempt by Russia to return to be a major world power. The list of new NATO members after the Cold War includes the former East Germany, three former members of the Soviet Union and five former members of the Warsaw Pact.     It is also well known that some de facto powers in the US have a private financial interest in the war industry. President and General Dwight Eisenhower, who knew what he was talking about, warned citizens in his farewell address in 1961 to "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex" and predicted that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
I already mentioned in another post my modest testimony of how some warmongering think-tanks in Washington pushed to arm Ukraine after the Russian occupation of Crimea. The lesson of the defeats in the Middle East is that the business is to sell arms without sending soldiers. They didn't make it then, but they have made it now.     In any case, private geopolitical and economic interests for the foreign conflict need a favorable internal political situation, as I analyze in my book Constitutional Polarization: A critical review of the U.S. political system, soon to be published. In a large and powerful country like the United States, domestic policy and foreign policy are negatively related.     When the country was under internal construction during the 19th century, it had no foreign policy. The issues at that time were territorial expansion from the thirteen independent colonies, the structure of new territories and states and the layout of their boundaries. Only since the early 20th century, when the United States established fixed continental borders and became internally organized as a more stable federation, has it been able to pursue an independent foreign policy.     However, American foreign policy is heavily clouded by the ineffectiveness of the domestic political system. The constitutional formula for the separation of powers between a legislative Congress and an executive President with only two political parties tends to produce deadlocks between the two institutions, leading to legislative paralysis, frequent government shutdowns, and presidential impeachments.    Bipartisan cooperation and the consequent working together of the White House and Capitol Hill only flourish when an existential threat from an outside enemy is felt, as was the case during World War II and the Cold War. The call for war in the 1940s, the Red Scare in the 1950s and its second edition in the 1980s were accompanied by popular feelings of fear and national unity, as well as low electoral participation and widespread political apathy.    On the contrary, during the last thirty years of relative peace abroad, unresolved internal political issues and new demands have emerged in health, climate, immigration, race, religion, gender, sex, family, education, gun control and voting rights, which have generated mobilizations, protests and a harsh confrontation and partisan polarization. External fear has been replaced by internal anger.    When President Bill Clinton was under siege from Republicans on all sides, he confessed, "I would have preferred to be president during World War II" and "I was envious that Kennedy had an enemy." President George W. Bush also longed for the past when he launched the fight against a new "Axis" of evil and Islamist terrorism that, according to his nonsense, "followed the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism." President Barack Obama was paralyzed by the suspicion that ending those wars might open up too many divisive domestic issues. It was Trump who started the withdrawal of troops from the Middle East and the first president in many years who did not start a new war; as a result, he faced an inner hell.    Joe Biden and the Democrats know that now the Republicans can again block any initiative on economic, social and cultural issues in the House of Representatives. To attract their cooperation in this new context of divided government, they may once again shift the emphasis to foreign policy with a belligerent orientation. A bipartisan foreign policy could satisfy the geopolitical interest of expanding NATO to the limits of Russia and the private economic interests in the military industry.    Russia is the welcome common foreign enemy. The dilemma between internal anger and external fear once again creates a political tension. Yet, we are not living the nationalist hysteria of the Cold War, but a flimsy bad copy of it. Security and military chiefs, including former Moscow ambassador and current CIA director William Burns and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, remember Eisenhower's warning, are more aware of the human costs of war, they have no overriding interest in another long-running conflict, and are pushing for peace negotiations.

At the end of January, the National
Security Archive declassified new documents from thirty years ago that show
how the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, was deceiving the
president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, about the expansion of NATO towards ex-communist
countries. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia had accepted
and supported a Partnership for a United Europe that would include both NATO
countries and former members of the Warsaw Pact. Clinton offered the compromise
of accepting Russia in the Group of 7, which became the Group of 8, and in
other multilateral organizations, but at the same time he was accelerating the
integration of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary into NATO, which would be
followed by the three Baltic republics and the other four Eastern Euro
countries.

Before this, Secretary of State
James Baker and several European leaders had already deceived Russian President
Mikhail Gorbachev by promising him that there would never be NATO troops in the
former East Germany or beyond its territory.

Despite everything, Yeltsin
chaired the G-8 summit in Moscow in 1996 and Vladimir Putin chaired the summit
in St. Petersburg in 2006. A year later, the United States presented a plan to
deploy missiles in Europe that Putin described as a "serious provocation that
reduces the level of mutual trust…no one feels safe." In 2008, President George
W. Bush offered NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia, which was considered by
the French and German governments, followed by other European ones, as an
"unnecessary offense to Russia." Already in 2014, NATO carried out military tests
on Ukrainian territory. And in 2019 Ukraine enshrined in the Constitution the
aspiration to join NATO and the EU as the "strategic course of the country."

A year ago, the US and NATO
offered Putin a disarmament deal at the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe in exchange for a de-escalation of
the military threat to Ukraine. Moscow declared that this was an acceptable
starting point for negotiations and announced the withdrawal of part of the
troops deployed along Ukraine's borders. However, former British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson, who had already landed theatrically in Kyiv when he was in
office, returned and persuaded President Volodymyr Zelensky to "keep fighting."

CIA Director William Burns had
predicted that last summer would see which alternative was more likely: a rapid
military turnaround followed by negotiation and peace or an escalation into a
protracted war. Since then, we have seen that the Ukrainian counteroffensive
failed and Zelensky has fired the head of the army. Regarding the other side, I
could be wrong, when Putin now says that he would prefer the next president of
the United States to be Joe Biden, it seems that he is not considering holding
out for another year with the dubious expectation that Trump would "end the war
in 24 hours," as he says.

As things stand, neither side can
win a total victory in the foreseeable future. Both should prefer peace
negotiations. If, under these conditions, they continued bombing and
destroying, there would be only a so-called attrition war. The longer the war
lasts, the more difficult it is to end it because a political compromise can
make the sacrifices suffered seem unnecessary, as if all the costs were for
nothing. Game theory exemplifies this behavior with duopoly competition when
both firms lose money but hope that one day the other firm will fold and the
"winner" will be the one that has lost the least. He who has the least to lose
(in this case, Russia) persists the most. But it is a pyrrhic victory because
if the attrition lasts long, the losses are greater than the gains for the
"winner" as well. As Plutarch tells it, Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, achieved a
victory over the Romans at the cost of thousands of his men and, contemplating
the outcome of the battle, said: "With another victory like this, I am
lost." In the end, those who win are the producers and sellers of weapons.

After two years of war, Ukraine's
future does not look very favorable. NATO has changed its mind three times
about its candidacy. Full integration into the European Union is imaginary
because Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe and would absorb all the aid
to agriculture, which is half of the EU's total spending. Meanwhile, millions
of Ukrainians have fled the country, elections have been suspended, and martial
law remains in effect.

Seen in perspective, the war in
Ukraine evokes other processes of expansion and contraction of great empires. The
dissolution of the USSR brought about the separation of half of its population
and one-fourth of its territory, thus generating new borders, new areas of
foreign influence, and also extraterritorial enclaves. This way were formed the
pro-Russian enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Transnistria in
Moldova, Kaliningrad in Lithuania, open to the Baltic and then to the Atlantic,
and now Crimea and Donbas in Ukraine with access to the Black Sea, which
entails passage to the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.

There are examples of these disarrangements
in all parts of the world. For example, the breakup of the British Empire left
an English enclave in Northern Ireland, a Turkish one in Northern Cyprus, and Gibraltar
in Spain. Regarding the latter, you may also want to check the location on the
map of the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, and Western Sahara.